Here's To The Last Time I'll Ever Kiss You
by Striped Candy
Summary: In which River Song contemplates her relationship with the Doctor, does some emotional introspect, and mourns the end of a relationship she cared about


**_Author's Note_**_: I wrote this as soon as I finished watching an episode of Doctor Who on Netflix. I forget which episode, but it was the one where at the ending, River kisses the Doctor and he's basically just really awkward/bashful. River asks him what his deal is and he's like, "This is the first time we've kissed". I finished the episode and then sat down and wrote this because I wondered what River might have been thinking after he said that and in the minutes after he left. I typed it up and then forgot to post it here. Please keep in mind I didn't know anything about the events of when River had killed someone (which, spoiler alert, we later find out was an unsuccessful attempt to kill the Doctor) besides what River had said on the show. I took her word literally at the time and thought she'd actually killed someone important in a life-or-death situation, so I vaguely alluded to it in this oneshot. I finished season 6 a couple weeks ago so now I'm caught up on how River ended up in jail but at the time of writing this I wasn't, so you'll just have to excuse that._

River had always understood that time was a complicated thing. At least, she had ever since she'd met him. The Doctor. Her Doctor. And she'd never failed to understand that travelling into the future, going into the past, leaving Earth to explore other planets or just run away . . . it was just as crazy and chaotic and eccentric. You had to be so careful, so cautious about everything you did. Everything you didn't do, what you chose to say and what you chose to omit. Both topics, both of those abstract subjects-time travelling and just time itself the way the Doctor described it, explained it, messed with it . . .-they were both closely entwined. River had always noticed that. Made believe she completely understood it. But in all honesty, what did she really know, really understand? The Doctor she knew usually told his companions things on a need-to-know basis. He assumed they had enough smarts or common sense to figure out everything else themselves. But they didn't have the experience he did. He always claimed he forgot he hadn't filled them in as much, but she suspected he was lying. He had a hero complex, she'd come to realize, much in the same way someone might have an inferiority complex. The Doctor always needed to be the hero, to be the knight on a white steed, rushing in to save everybody and be his eccentric self while doing it. He liked showing off, liked the rush of saving everybody and setting things right _just _in time. He thrived on the adrenaline. The Doctor had a flair for the dramatics, River had long since noticed. It always showed up when he was off saving someone. It was just another one of his quirks. That was what got people in trouble. They met a lonely, eccentric, charming man who could take them anywhere, show them the stars. How could they refuse? But he never told them anything that mattered, not until it was too late.

River was dimly aware that there were a lot of those kinds of disjointed, confusing thoughts marching through her brain as she watched her Doctor clumsily, slowly amble back to his TARDIS. Back to his blue, time-travelling box. She watched as he awkwardly searched for words, though she couldn't even begin to process if he'd said anything. She was sure if he did, she'd just smile or smirk and give an in-character response. That was second nature for her now, when she felt too shocked or worn out or numb to stay mentally present. Mostly, River was aware of the TARDIS as it slowly whooshed and sidled out of her reality. With grim amusement, River turned to face her cell. Prison wasn't much of a reality. And reality tended to dim and darken when you were stuck there for killing a man, for taking a life. Not that she'd had a choice when it had happened. But it had been him or her. She'd just given herself the guarantee that she would walk out of that situation alive, even if it meant she was walking from a dead body to a prison cell.

She pushed her back against one of the cool prison walls, slowly sliding down until she was sitting down. Her legs automatically folded and slid until they were as tightly pressed to her chest as they could ever be. One arm wrapped around her legs. River laid her cheek onto her knees, forcing herself to breathe through the spasm of pained loss ricocheting through her. She hadn't realized it would hurt, and hurt this much, at losing her Doctor, at meeting younger versions of him. Versions that didn't remember her. That didn't remember their relationship. It hurt to lose the one you loved, especially when they were so close but so far away. When they had no idea of the impenetrable distance between the two of you. Her eyes softened as the last of the TARDIS's engine noises faded away and she was left alone. Again. She stared out through the prison bars, her eyes flicking up and down the dimmed hallway, an empty, rounded corridor that was used to hold River Song and River Song alone. She stretched out a hand to one of the prison bars, wrapped her trembling hand around it. Her other arm, still wrapped around her legs, tightened involuntarily. River felt nauseated, a new feeling for her. She could feel the brutal beginnings of a headache and whether she ought to take a painkiller for it. It certainly wasn't going to help. But no. She wouldn't ask, not really, even if she did fantasize about it sometimes. She could bear it; a headache was nothing to the emotional trauma she felt at the man she'd loved so hard for so long leaving her.

If River was any other girl, she might be crying. She might be screaming out various things that all essentially meant, _This isn't fair! Come back! Don't leave me! _She might be lying on her cot, staring listlessly at one of the prison walls, or the ceiling, refusing to eat. But she wasn't going to pull any dramatics, because River wasn't just anybody. She had never made the mistake of thinking that somehow she'd be able to find a way to live with the Doctor, so that her past finally wouldn't be his future. So that she wouldn't have to spend her days in jail. So that they could finally remember everything, together. At the same moment in time and move forward together, side by side. She had never made the mistake of romanticizing their situation, their relationship. There was nothing special, nothing romantic, about how every time she knew more about him, he knew less about her, about them, each time they met. The only kinds of people who fell in love with that situation were fools who had never had the agony of experiencing it. River had never made the mistake of believing that as long as they loved each other and worked at their relationship, everything would work out and they'd be able to be together. She had never made the same mistakes that Earth girls seemed to make, the naive and over-optimistic beliefs they invested in that almost always were the catalyst to a broken was real life. It wasn't a fairy tale. Things didn't always go the way you wanted or expected them to. You didn't always get what you wanted.

River's situation with the Doctor was different than most relationships. The older she got, the more she stayed where she was and lived out her life in a prison cell, occasionally breaking out . . . the less the Doctor knew her. They travelled in different time streams most of the time, sometimes overlapping and seeing each other. She was terrified of the day she would see him, go sashaying up to him, and he wouldn't even know her face. Wouldn't know her name, who she was, what they were to each other. It was inevitable, of course. She knew that that day was. Her one hope was that somehow, she wouldn't be able to remember much of the day when it did happen.

She had envisioned so many different possibilities of how the day would play out. What sort of planet or reality they'd be stuck in, what sort of adventure they'd be on, whether it would be life-threatening. Whether it would just be a normal day when it happened. She had obsessed over the endless possibilities of what they'd say, her making snarky come-backs to his comments. She had obsessed over how she would react after realizing he just didn't know her. Whether she'd have time to process it. River had fixated and obsessed over that day to come like she was a lovesick teenage girl and not a mature, well-rounded woman (in more ways than one). She'd refused to let it go and just breathe. So those thoughts had taken up residence in her head. And it was all she'd thought about during her generous amount of free time. It made her sick now, the sheer intensity of her thinking.

River closed her eyes, sucking in deep breathes. She couldn't stop picking at her pain now that she was feeling it, couldn't let it go. She felt like her entire being was filled and overflowing with untreatable anxious distress. She didn't know how to handle it, how to process her feelings. How to articulate her feelings. She'd missed out on that growing up. River had always found it hard to emotionally connect to other people. To anyone. Even her own parents. She'd always wondered if there was something wrong with her. She remembered that once a person from her childhood had said her lack of empathy meant she was probably a sociopath. Maybe even a psychopath. River hadn't known what either word meant, but had pretended at the time that she did and laughed it off. It sort of stung a bit, now that she understood the terms.

Then the Doctor had happened. She had fallen so hard for him. Not at once, not at first sight. She had been infatuated, then in love. She had learned what it meant to love someone selflessly, to place them before yourself. It had secretly relieved her to no end in the beginning, to actually know for sure she was capable of feeling something other than cool distaste for others.

But now . . . it was the beginning of the end. She could just tell. It was a developed instinct from being around the Doctor for so long, to sense when something big was coming to a climatic ending while only having a few subtle non-verbal cues. River pushed out another breath, opened her eyes, clenched the prison cell bar one more time before slowly standing up. All this emotional and mental introspection was exhausting. Completely, astoundingly draining. Five minutes or so was all she could manage at one time. Now it was time to move on, to do something productive and dangerous and reckless. She needed to feel something stronger than the pain she was holding inside. It was time to stop acting like a weak, senseless woman who was dependent on a man. River Song was a strong, independent woman who didn't need anyone to make her feel complete, feel happy. She walked over to her cot and settled down, knowing full well she needed some rest. She carefully, slowly, tricked herself into falling into a restless doze. She didn't expect more than a few brief hours of rest.

River didn't think that spending a grand amount of time in her cell right now was a good idea, was healthy for her. She couldn't self-isolate right now, lest she spiral down into dangerous habits to cope with her feelings. She'd seen too many people isolate themselves when they were in so much emotional or mental pain they could barely breathe. Could barely get out of bed. She'd seen them slowly spiral downwards, seen them have self-induced insanity or harm themselves, seen them not cope with their issues. She refused to be like them. She would not sink because she couldn't deal. She had had much worse thrown at her and come out alive.

Tomorrow she would have to break out, find some grand party to attend. She would find a way to heal, to get by and lose the painful loneliness she felt.

But first she would focus on the possibilities of tomorrow. A new day for her to shine, a day where she would come back with a story to tell.


End file.
